Une semaine de bonté ou les sept éléments capitaux. Roman. (Benjamin Peret's copy)
Paris: Éditions Jeanne Bucher, 1934.
First edition. Complete in five volumes, each one of 800 numbered copies on Navarre paper. Publisher's variously-colored wraps, housed in a custom slipcase. Text in French. Near Fine with slightly rubbed and shelfworn wraps, repairs to spines, faint crease to front wrap of third volume. Slipcase lightly sunned and worn.
A great association copy as it belonged to French poet, surrealist, and Dadaist Benjamin Peret. Peret's ink inscription is on the first volume, "Exemplaire de Benjamin Péret : Les statistiques nous apprennent que les dimanches deviennent extrêmement rares. Tant mieux. L'ami Max." (Translated into English: "Benjamin Péret's copy. Statistics tell us that Sundays are becoming extremely rare. So much the better. The friend of Max.") Peret and Ernst both were leading lights of the surrealist movement and adept at creating collages. This proto-graphic novel is an early, acclaimed example of the use of collage in book design with 182 images cut up and rearranged from Victorian encyclopedias and novels.
From the collection of French economist and political adviser Jacques Attali with his bookplate on the chemise.
Price: $8,500.00